“No, Mrs. Dale, I’m not to be ‘got round.’ You’ve chosen to take me upon your shoulders, so now you must just keep me. Ha, ha! You didn’t know I had so much determination, did you?” But Mrs. Dale could scarcely speak. Now for the first time that morning Mabin realized that the scene of the night had really taken place, for the emotion aroused by this little bit of talk had brought back into Mrs. Dale’s blue eyes a faint reproduction of the wild terror she had shown when she came to the girl’s room. When she had recovered her voice, the lady in black, pale, hoarse, shaken with her agitation, stammered out these words: “My dear girl, it is beautiful of you to offer to stay. But I cannot let you. You ought never to have come. I was mad, wicked to let you come; and my madness and my wickedness I must bear alone.” How strange these words seemed in the broad daylight, Mabin thought! By the weak glimmer of the night-light Mrs. Dale’s wild looks and words had seemed fantastic, weird. But the broad sunlight seemed to give the nameless horror which hung about the poor little lady in black a reality as vivid as it was painful. But with this feeling there came also into the heart of the young girl a great tenderness toward the suffering woman, who was haunted by the shadow of her own past. So she smiled, and with a pretty, half-shy look in her eyes, said: “You told me I saved you from going mad. So I mean to stay. And I mean to sleep in the same room with you, so that you shall not be frightened any more.” Mrs. Dale shook her head. “I can’t let you do that,” said she. “I don’t sleep very well, and sometimes I start up and cry out. I should frighten you.” “Then we will exchange rooms,” said Mabin. By the look of joy and relief which flashed over Mrs. Dale’s face at this suggestion, Mabin saw that she had conquered. “But--won’t you be afraid?” asked the widow in a troubled voice. “What! Of a ghost, a vision? Or of having bad dreams? No, not a bit.” Mrs. Dale glanced gratefully at the young face, with its look of robust Philistine scorn of phantoms. “It is a temptation,” she murmured. “For, after all, I know, I _know_ that it was only a dream, a horrible dream. And there is no fear that the dream will come to _you_.” “And if it did,” retorted Mabin stoutly, “it wouldn’t frighten me. I’m too ‘stodgy;’ I have no imagination.” Mrs. Dale smiled sadly. “You are right,” she said. “If you did have the same dream, it would have no terrors for you. Your conscience is clear.” “And my digestion good,” added Mabin lightly, as she picked up the fallen flowers and put them in her basket. There was no doubt that her refusal to go had taken a load of melancholy from the shoulders of her hostess, who sent the young girl out for a walk as soon as the gathering of the flowers was over, and charged her not to go far enough to tire her still weak ankle.